SHERRY

Wednesday, 4 December 2013

Lucerne and Mount Titlis: Our last trip to the Swiss before returning to SG

Our last trip to Switzerland before returning SG. We planned to spend our Saturday in Lucerne and Mount Titlis on Sunday. I love snow mountains and Switzerland so knowing that it's the last trip, I felt really emotional.

We arrived in Lucerne after a 3 hours drive and checked in to Ibis Budget Hotel. It's the cheapest and decent hotel we could find in Lucerne. One thing to say about this hotel is the toilet and shower area. They are separate and there's no lock for the toilet and shower doors. It'll be quite inconvenient for friends travelling together.

This is the toilet door, inside only got a toilet bowl la. There's no lock and the hole in the door is the 'knob' to pull open the door. See, hubby's fingers poking out of the hole.. Lol!

The shower area door with no lock. You can peep through the transparent gaps to see the person showering inside, and there're gaps on top and at the bottom. Water will splash out of the shower area one.

Okay, then we went out to explore Lucerne. Lucerne is a city near Lake Lucerne, and its famous attractions are the old town and the Chapel Bridge. The shops were closing when we were there, and having seen so many old towns in other European cities, Lucerne's old town is nothing special la, so really nothing much to explore. Comparing lakeside cities, we think Interlaken is more beautiful.

The Chapel Bridge

Christmas decor everywhere

Night view of Lucerne old town

Square in Lucerne Old Town, it's quite a small one

Me walking on Chapel Bridge, cold die me

Saw an ice skating ground across the road from Lucerne train station

Candle light dinner, so romantic. We didn't plan for this. We came across this restaurant on our way back to hotel. We were freezing so wanna find a place to get some warmth.

The food was good! Hubby ordered their Lucerne's specialty "Veal sausage with mushroom sauce in pastry" and I ordered my favourite Cheese Fondue. Chou hubby, asked him to take a picture of my Cheese Fondue, he said "take le, take le". This picture focus on his food and cannot see my Cheese Fondue lor, only can see the pot nia. >.<

On Sunday, we checked out hotel and drove towards Engelberg where we took the cable car up to Mount Titlis. It was super cold that day. Even at Engelberg (1000 m in altitude), it's already -5 degrees celsius.

Snow covered parking. Hubby drove super careful because brakes dun work very well in such snowy and slippery road conditions as the wheels will still skid a distance after stepping on the brakes.

A real and snow-covered Christmas tree! It's so big! I'm so tiny.

When we were buying tickets, we were stunned that it's only 52 CHF per person for a return ticket to Titlis because I saw online that it's 89 CHF per person for return ticket. We were so surprised that we stoned for a while and the staff had to keep repeating 104 CHF to us. Lol. Heehee. We were super happy la.

We took 3 different types of cable cars to reach Titlis. The first one was the small cabin cable car which has a maximum capacity of 6 people. We changed at Trubsee to a big cable car, then changed again at Stand to the Rotair (the rotating cable car) to go up Mount Titlis.

This is the Rotair. The rotating was quite funny la. Only the floor was rotating so when I held the bar by the windows, I realised my arms was stretching as the floor rotates, so I need to keep changing bars to hold. Lol.

We arrived on Titlis and grabbed some food for lunch first. We managed to get a window seat and this was our view while having our lunch. Nothing worthy to mention about the food because it's not nice.

After lunch, we walked around and saw the Glacier Cave. We happily thought that it would be similar to the Ice Palace at Jungfraujoch but erm.. Everything was under construction and there's nothing to see.

We saw the sign board for the Cliff Walk (highest suspension bridge in Europe). It's 250 meters away from the main building. Seems near eh, but when walking in snowy, super cold and strong winds condition, dun say 250 meters, 100 meters also cannot tahan man.

The wind was so strong and cold that my eyes kept tearing and I couldn't open them. We had to keep stopping and turned our backs to face the direction of the winds, because of the randomly flying snow flakes. If got hit by the snow flakes very pain one, and might get cut.

See the flying snow flakes.

Finally, we reached the suspension bridge. Wind was still very strong when we were walking on it. It's very scary as the bridge kept shaking, and at the same time we have to protect our face from the flying snow flakes and the strong wind. I was so scared that I cried when I was in the middle of the bridge, and hubby scared dio when he saw me kept crying. Lol. Then hubby asked me to dry the tears, because if the tears froze on my cheeks, it will be super painful.

Looking down from the suspension bridge. Scary.

At the other end of the suspension bridge

View on the bridge. Nice.

Then we returned to the main building and had some hot chocolate and cappuccino at the cafe before going back to Engelberg.

Anyway, we met a group of funny Malaysian tourists in the Rotair. There was a super crappy and funny uncle in that group, he talked a lot of crap and it's been a long time since I laughed so hard. He said himself is "超级猛男" and only his wife has the ability to tame this "猛男". He talked a lot of other craps la.

When they knew we are from Singapore, he said we 有水准 because Singapore currency is now bigger than Ringgit, 2.5 Ringgit = 1 SGD, we were like ??!!!, the crap came out of nowhere. Hubby asked him which part of Malaysia are they from, and the uncle 竟然 gave the crappiest answer "那个不重要，重要的是我们在这里相遇!" I seriously wanna 拜 him for his crappiness already. Then he said to my hubby "Wah, 你有水准阿，来意大利做工，又有美女老婆陪." Lol.

A group of China aunty also joined in the conversation. The crappy uncle asked the China aunty "你坐什么飞机来这里？" Somehow the aunty heard the question wrongly, and she said "军用飞机". The uncle miraculously crap with her "Wah! 你更有水准，坐军用飞机来!" We seriously laugh until we buey tahan.

Anyway, it's time to change to the small cabin cable car liao. So we say bye bye to them la. There was forest of snowy Christmas trees beneath us while we were in the cable car. This was the best Christmas feel ever!

Back at Engelberg, it was a crazy -10 degrees Celsius. Burrr..

In the midst of low-lying clouds, there's a clear hole for us to peek at the mountain top. Nice!

-10 degrees Celsius

And we said bye bye to Switzerland and the snowy mountains, and started our journey home :(